Job Stories

Create job stories using the 'When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome]' format with detailed acceptance criteria. Use when

Category: content-creation Source: phuryn/pm-skills

What Is This?

Overview

Job Stories is a structured framework for capturing user needs and system requirements using a consistent, situation-driven format. The core template follows the pattern: "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome]." This approach shifts focus away from assumed personas and toward the actual context and motivations that drive user behavior, making requirements more actionable and testable.

Unlike traditional user stories that center on a role or persona, job stories emphasize the circumstances that trigger a need. This distinction matters because the same user may behave differently depending on the situation. By anchoring requirements to specific situations, teams write acceptance criteria that reflect real-world conditions rather than abstract user archetypes.

The Job Stories skill on Happycapy automates the generation of well-formed job stories complete with detailed acceptance criteria. It helps product managers, developers, and designers produce consistent backlog items that align with Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) theory, reducing ambiguity and improving the quality of sprint planning and feature development.

Who Should Use This

• Product managers who need to translate user research findings into structured backlog items
• Business analysts responsible for documenting functional requirements for development teams
• UX designers who want to ground feature proposals in specific user situations and motivations
• Scrum masters and agile coaches looking to improve the quality and consistency of team backlog items
• Startup founders and solo builders who need a repeatable process for defining features before development
• QA engineers who rely on clear acceptance criteria to write effective test cases

Why Use It?

Problems It Solves

• Vague requirements that lead to misaligned development work and costly rework cycles
• Persona-based stories that fail to capture the situational context driving actual user behavior
• Inconsistent backlog item formats that slow down sprint planning and estimation
• Missing or incomplete acceptance criteria that make it difficult to verify when a feature is done
• Difficulty translating qualitative user research into structured, developer-ready requirements

Core Highlights

• Generates job stories in the standard "When, I want to, so I can" format automatically
• Produces detailed acceptance criteria alongside each story
• Focuses on situations and motivations rather than assumed user roles
• Aligns with Jobs-to-be-Done methodology for deeper requirement clarity
• Reduces time spent writing and formatting backlog items manually
• Supports consistent output across multiple team members and projects
• Improves traceability between user research insights and development tasks

How to Use It?

Basic Usage

Invoke the skill by providing a situation, motivation, and desired outcome. The skill structures these inputs into a complete job story with acceptance criteria.

Input:
Situation: a user is reviewing a long report on a mobile device
Motivation: quickly navigate to the section most relevant to their role
Outcome: save time and avoid reading irrelevant content

Output:
When I am reviewing a long report on a mobile device,
I want to quickly navigate to the section most relevant to my role,
so I can save time and avoid reading irrelevant content.

Acceptance Criteria:
- The report displays a collapsible table of contents on mobile viewports
- Sections are labeled with role-relevant tags (e.g., Finance, Operations)
- Tapping a section heading scrolls directly to that section
- The table of contents remains accessible via a sticky button while scrolling

Specific Scenarios

Scenario 1: Feature backlog creation. A product manager preparing for sprint planning uses the skill to convert five user interview insights into formatted job stories, each with acceptance criteria ready for developer review.

Scenario 2: Requirement refinement. A business analyst receives a vague feature request and uses the skill to reframe it as a situation-driven job story, making the underlying motivation explicit before passing it to the development team.

Real-World Examples

A SaaS company uses job stories to document onboarding flow requirements, ensuring each step addresses a specific user situation rather than a generic new user persona. A mobile app team uses the skill to generate acceptance criteria for offline functionality, anchoring each criterion to the situation where connectivity is unavailable.

Important Notes

Requirements

• Input should include a clear situation, a specific motivation, and a measurable outcome
• The skill works best when situations are grounded in real user research or observed behavior
• Acceptance criteria quality depends on the specificity of the provided motivation and outcome
• Teams should review generated criteria against technical constraints before adding to the backlog